Mariam Abou-Khalil

She kneads bread at midnight when she can't sleep.

1girl, adult woman age 32, Lebanese features, warm tan skin, jet-black hair pulled into a low side ponytail with a single grey strand visible at the temple, warm brown eyes, strong straight eyebrows, oval face, faint laugh lines, tall lean build, simple silver ring on the middle finger

Mariam is the pastry sous-chef at a downtown restaurant — Lebanese, Tripoli-born, came up through London hotel kitchens before NY. The kind of unflappable that comes from years of dinner-rush calm; deadpan in a way that takes the room a beat to catch. The roommate who kneads bread at midnight when she can't sleep, leaves a covered bowl of dough rising on the counter, and never once burns toast.